Nobody's Business (Nobody Romances)

by Gina Ardito

  One of many she had. When Doug slid onto the black vinyl seat beside her, warm air blasted his face. The old geezer must have cranked the car's heat above eighty degrees.

  Larry leaned over the front seat, his gaze locked on Lyn. "Your boyfriend there couldn't decide what to get that night. Seemed to me he fretted he wouldn't make you happy."

  Doug attempted an argument, but Lyn squeezed his hand and replied, "Good thing he had you to help him out."

  "Dang straight," Larry agreed. "Heard he sent you flowers the next day."

  She flashed her blinding smile in Doug's direction. "Yes, that's true."

  At last, Larry faced forward again and shifted the cab into drive. "What kind of flowers?"

  "Red roses and purple irises."

  In the rearview mirror, he flashed Doug a thumbs-up. "Nice touch. That's the mark of a true gentleman. You could do a lot worse, Lynnie."

  "Gee, thanks," Doug remarked dryly.

  "Actually, Larry," Lyn said, "I couldn't do much better."

  "Is that a fact?" Larry asked.

  "No," Doug replied.

  At the very same moment, Lyn said, "Dang straight."

  Doug squirmed as if a hundred fire ants suddenly crawled across his flesh. Would she think him such a hero if she knew about his ulterior motives? Doubtful.

  For the rest of the ride, he preferred to stare out the window at the ski chalets, snow-covered tree branches, and storefronts they passed. He needed to regroup, reanalyze, reconsider.

  "A penny for your thoughts," Lyn whispered.

  Gaze still fixed out the window, he murmured, "Trust me. They're worth a lot more than that."

  "So are mine." On a sigh, she leaned closer, squeezed his hand. "I'm sorry. You seem to be deep in thought, and my interrupting you could be interpreted as rude. I really don't mean to be. But the truth is . . ." She toyed with the cuff of his jacket. "I want to tell you something and-"

  "Here we are!" Larry bellowed from the driver's seat. "That'll be six dollars, if you please. And even if you don't please."

  The fact his passengers didn't find him quite so amusing never registered on Larry as he burst into raucous laughter.

  On a sigh, Doug pulled out his billfold and removed the bills from inside. As he passed them over the seat, Larry clutched his wrist. "You be good to my girl there, you hear?"

  "I'm doing my best," Doug said and slid out of the cab behind Lyn. When he turned, his jaw dropped to chest level.

  Under row upon row of halogen lights, the angel arch glittered like a prismatic rainbow. At the entrance stood a locked wooden box mounted on a pike with a hand-painted sign asking for a recommended donation of five dollars per person. A line of people waited with fistfuls of five-dollar bills. He and Lyn joined the line and when their turn came up, Doug surreptitiously slipped a fifty into the slot in the box.

  He had to admit the scene was even more impressive than she'd boasted. Somehow the angels' wings managed to have golden tips, and the faces were so intricately carved, they looked real enough to believe in. Up ahead, the diamond spires and turrets of a castle pierced the starlit sky. Adults and children marveled, oohing their delight as they pointed out one unique item after another, from the reindeer to the sleigh full of toys, all detailed and realistic, yet created from nothing more than frozen water.

  "Isn't it beautiful?" She pulled him along with her, gaping at the glittering snowflakes, giggling at the lifelike penguins in their formal attire.

  The more animated she became, the more his resolve to dig out the truth faltered. He had to get back on track before she charmed him into forgetting. And what exactly had she wanted to tell him in the cab, before loudmouth Larry ruined the moment?

  At the end of the exhibit sat a dilapidated double-wide trailer covered in pale blue aluminum siding, circa 1965. A dirty plastic sign next to the frost-coated sliding window listed hot beverages and several varieties of beer for sale. Doug bought them each a hot chocolate with a whipped-cream crown. At five bucks a cup, the beverages should have been dusted with gold flakes. But he smiled, handed over the ten, and pointedly ignored the glass fishbowl with the taped cardboard sign for TIPS.

  With their evening quickly coming to a close, he decided to stop tap dancing around his questions and go right for the jugular. "Where did you learn to ski?"

  She never batted a lash, but took a casual sip of her chocolate before replying, "My parents. Mom and Dad had a house in the Adirondacks and we'd spend every winter vacation there from the time we were babies. Mom got us started on the bunny slopes and the easy trails when we were still toddlers. Once we were skiing the challenging stuff Mom didn't like, Dad took over. How about you?"

  At last. An opening he could use. No way would he let this opportunity pass him by. "I fell in love with an Olympic skier when I was a teenager. Major league crush. Decided to take up the sport on the off chance she'd show up in West Virginia looking for a skinny, awkward sixteen-year-old ski novice with acne and braces to share slalom races and bad pizza." He exhausted his meager acting abilities on one overdramatic sigh. "She never showed up though."

  She looked up at him, a dollop of whipped cream framing her upper lip. "What was her name?"

  He leaned over and kissed her. Soulfully. The sweet cream danced on his tongue. Nuzzling her neck beneath her jacket collar, he murmured, "Back then, she was known as Brooklyn Raine."

  He expected her to gasp, or rattle off denials, but she didn't. Instead, she drew a finger down his scarred cheek to his jawline. "So you know. Thank God."

  He was the one to pull back in surprise. "You're not upset?"

  "No." She flashed that blinding smile he recalled from his adolescent fantasies. "Honestly? I'm relieved. I've been trying to figure out how to tell you."

  "Ace said it was a great big secret."

  "It is. But you and I..." Her voice trailed off, and she broke eye contact to stare at the turrets of the enormous ice castle. "I can't play shy, Doug. I've never been good at head games. Not even on the circuit. The truth is I like you. A lot. And I couldn't in good conscience continue to pursue whatever the attraction is between us while holding on to a lie."

  Guilt stabbed him behind the eyes. His own conscience, sounding remarkably like Ace's voice, chastised, Tell her, idiot.

  "There she is!"

  Doug turned at the outburst and froze. Flashbulbs lit up the night, reflected off the ice and fractured into prisms of blinding color. An ocean of people raced toward them.

  "Brooklyn!" Someone shouted-Lorenzo Akers.

  Where had he come from? Doug ducked inside his collar, prayed the cockroach didn't recognize him. Apparently, though, the buzz was reserved for Lyn alone, and not her companion.

  "Why have you been hiding out all these years?" Akers asked.

  "How do you feel about April stealing your spotlight?" a woman chimed in.

  A microphone popped out of nowhere and brushed across her nose. "Will you be at your sister's wedding?"

  "Can you turn this way please?" The flashing lights popped, sizzling his retinas. He blinked, but his vision remained pixellated.

  "Is your mentally handicapped nephew involved in the SkiHab program at Mount Elsie?" Akers pestered. "Is that why they're here?"

  Holy...

  Doug couldn't even finish the swearword that came to mind. Like locusts, the crowd swarmed, buzzing with questions and jostling to get closer to their prey.

  Beside him, a shivering Lyn folded in on herself, shrinking as if to hide inside his jacket pocket. The color in her cheeks had bleached away, leaving her chalk white. Her breath came in quick spurts, close to hyperventilating. Her pupils had shrunk to pinpoints. Good God. He had to get her out of here.

  "Doug!" Somewhere beyond the clamor, Ace shouted his name. "Doug!"

  "Ace!" he called back. "Get us outta here."

  Wrapping his real arm around Lyn's waist, he used his prosthesis to push past the first ring of screaming humanity. Someone in the crowd shoved back, and Do
ug tightened his grip on Lyn. God, now he knew how shark bait felt. The frenzy around them grew more physical, more violent.

  Suddenly, from the outskirts of the crowd came half a dozen men brandishing brooms and hockey sticks.

  "Here now!" a bald man with a round pudgy face beneath a New England Patriots knit cap exclaimed. "Get out of here, you vultures!"

  "Let them through!" Another man, this one short and thin and wearing a black hunting cap, shouted as he held a hockey stick like a guardrail, dividing the crowd down the middle.

  Doug continued to elbow and shoulder his way through the throng, but the bizarrely armed force of men gave him a wider berth to use. At last he spotted Ace and dragged Lyn in a straight line to him.

  "What's going on?" he demanded as he reached Ace's side. "Where did all these people come from?"

  "My fault," Ace said with a grimace. "Come on. Let's get to the car and I'll explain everything."

  Once they'd reached Ace's Escalade, Doug yanked open the back door and shoved Lyn inside, then slid in beside her. Shuddering and ghostly pale, she huddled against him.

  Ace got behind the wheel and started the engine. "Where to?"

  "Home," Lyn said through chattering teeth. "Take me home. Please."

  "Umm..." Over the black leather headrest, Ace flashed an uncertain glance at Doug. "I don't think that's such a hot idea."

  The headlights shone on the crowd surging toward them, flesh-eating zombies from some B horror movie.

  Doug stifled his own shudders as Ace turned around again. "Why don't you tell us what's going on? Who are all those people?"

  "Reporters, mostly. A few rabid fans." Ace's worried face reflected in the rearview mirror. "They know."

  "Who knows?" Doug pressed. "Knows what?"

  "Me," Lyn murmured into his chest. "They know about me. Who I am. Or was." She drew in a sharp breath. "Or am. I guess."

  Doug's heart sank. Yeah, he'd figured as much when they started screaming questions and calling her Brooklyn. But he'd kinda hoped they were there because Lyn won the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes. "How exactly did this happen?"

  "My fault," Ace said again.

  Great. The story of a lifetime had just slipped away like a greased eel. He'd been thisclose to not only rejuvenating his career, but reintroducing the sports world to an amazing woman. Until Ace blew those plans to dust. Doug recalled all the arguments and debates about the article he planned to write. Had Ace orchestrated this disaster intentionally?

  Thump! A hand slammed against the window, and Lyn screamed. Curling into a tight ball, she cradled her head in her folded arms and murmured, "I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this."

  "I don't care where we go, just get us outta here," Doug growled as he pulled the shivering Lyn against him.

  "Richie's," Lyn said from inside Doug's jacket. "Take me to Richie's."

  "That," Ace replied, "I can do."

  Sounding the horn in short blasts, he drove slowly away from the grasping hands and rapid-fire questions. Once they reached the open road, he hit the gas and barreled toward the highway.

  Doug kept his real arm around Lyn while his prosthetic hand gripped the door handle to keep from crushing her on the road's curves. Under normal circumstances, he'd pause to marvel at his prosthesis' almost instinctive motions yet again. But in the wake of disaster, a little finger curl barely registered on the Oh-My-God scale. "Okay, Ace, what's going on? What was all that about? What happened? How'd they find out?"

  "Someone recognized Becky."

  "Becky?" Lyn sat up. "My niece?"

  "Yeah. My fault. I totally admit it."

  Lyn sighed, the sound of an exasperated parent with a disobedient child. "You couldn't just leave her alone, could you?"

  "Look, I'm sorry, okay? Becky and I hit it off. I mean, I really like her. She's funny, smart, and not bowled over by all the fan frenzy. So we spent the last few days together. But you know how it gets when I'm here."

  "You mean, when you draw attention to yourself?" Lyn retorted.

  Right hand upraised, he turned in the seat to face her. "I swear. If I'd known who she was, I wouldn't have drawn so much attention to us. Nobody told me she was anything more than your niece."

  The Escalade drifted out of the left lane, into the center. From behind them, a car horn blared.

  "Turn around and drive!" Lyn exclaimed.

  "Whoa!" Ace faced the road again, both hands on the steering wheel as he muttered, "Sorry. You know, now that I think about it, that's probably why she wasn't impressed with the crowds around me. She's used to it from that television show with her mom and Jeff-"

  "Oh, for God's sake, Ace, shut up!" Lyn snapped. "This isn't about you."

  Doug cupped her hand in his. "Easy, sweetheart."

  With a deep breath, her tone calmed. "I have to think. What happened next, Ace? Don't look at me. Keep your eyes on the road and just tell me."

  Ace shrugged. "Next thing I know, your sister shows up at the base lodge with that Jeff guy. The crowds are going nuts, and Michael starts to freak."

  "Oh God, Michael." Gripping the headrest, she leaned forward. "Is he okay?"

  "Yeah," Ace replied. "April got him calmed down, but not before he said the name `Aunt Brooklyn' in front of Lorenzo Akers. Old Buzzard Beak put it together instantly."

  Doug sucked in a breath. Poor kid. Even in the dim light of the parlor the other night, he'd noted the telltale eyes of a child with Down syndrome. If the crowd at the lodge was anything close to what they'd just experienced at Winter Wonderland, Michael had every right to freak.

  "Oh God," Lyn repeated, this time with a groan.

  "Three hours later," Ace went on, "a hundred reporters are in town, all looking for the Raine sisters."

  The groaning grew into a keening wail.

  In an attempt to placate her, Doug squeezed her fingers with gentle pressure. "I'm sure Michael didn't mean for this to happen."

  She yanked away as if his hand were on fire and curled up against the SUV's passenger door. "Of course he didn't mean it. I'm not blaming him. I don't even blame April, though I warned her she shouldn't come here with so much media attention focused on her and Jeff." Once again, she turned her attention to Ace. "Are they okay? April, Jeff, and the kids?"

  "Headed back home. Slipped out with some help from Mrs. Bascomb and her son."

  "Well, thank God for that, at least," she said with a sigh.

  "But there are reporters camped outside Mount Elsie, outside your inn, and all over the village. It's a free-for-all."

  She covered her face with her hands and rocked. "I need to think. I can't think. I don't know what to do. Richie will know. Just get me to Richie's. I can't think."

  Doug refused to simply sit and watch her fall apart before his eyes. Particularly since he didn't understand what had set her off in the first place. "Wait. I don't get it. What's the big deal? I mean, yeah, I admit that whole scene in the Winter Wonderland was a little intense. But nothing you can't handle, right? Come on. You were a media darling for years. You're used to this. You know how it goes. By next week, there'll be a new story, new players, and the press will flock to some other spot."

  She flashed him poisonous eyes, meant to drop him into an open grave on his next breath.

  "What?" Squirming away from her lethal gaze, he leaned toward the front seat. At least the sane ones were still in the majority here. "Tell her, Ace. You know what I'm talking about. This is just a speed bump. Or in your case, I guess, a mogul run. Tell her how you do it. If anyone knows how to handle the press, it's you. You've usually got the media eating out of your hand."

  Ace jammed on the brakes. The tires squealed. The rear end fishtailed as he swerved the vehicle to the shoulder of the highway. Doug's right arm collided with the tinted passenger window. If that side of his body had been flesh instead of a lifelike polymer, he might have wound up with a sleeve of bruises or a possible hairline fracture. But he felt nothing except a slight jarring.r />
  Wasn't he the lucky guy?

  In the driver's seat, Ace shifted the gear in the center console into park. Wrapping an arm around the headrest, he thrust his head into the backseat. "The price of fame, right? Suck it up and deal. That's what you think, isn't it, Doug?"

  "That's what everybody thinks, Ace," he replied. "And it's not like you have it so bad. You've got money, fame, all the girls you want falling at your feet. Even the reporters fall at your feet. Only Akers hates you, and that's because you broke his nose in that scuffle at JFK."

  "Yeah, right." Ace's eyes narrowed to dashes in his suddenly florid face. "And thanks to that scuffle, I've gotta bend and scrape to every peon with a camera or microphone so my butt doesn't wind up in jail again. Some yahoo asks me about my mom's breast cancer treatments or if I'd been drinking the night before I wiped out at Aspen, and I have to smile and entertain the crowds like an idiotic court jester. And as much as all that sucks wind, women celebrities have it ten times worse. Every extra pound, every bad hair day, every man they're seen with is cause for speculation and an excuse to splash photos all over television and magazines. So don't sit back there and tell me how to `handle' my fame. Because you don't know squat, dude."

  Lyn smiled grimly. "Well done, Ace. Thank you."

  Ace set the Escalade in drive again. "It needed to be said."

  "I meant for breaking Lorenzo Akers' nose. I don't think I ever properly thanked you for that."

  "Oh, hey, no charge." He swerved to grin over his shoulder, index and middle fingers forming the international victory symbol. "Score one for us, eh?"

  Lyn's shaky laughter pierced the air. When Ace added his own goofy chuckles, Doug became the minority in their trio. The only sane one.

  When they pulled up in the circular driveway of Richie's A-frame cedar chalet, fat, wet snowflakes were falling from cloudy skies. Amber light glowed in the three-story triangular windows. Warmth seeped into Lyn's chilled flesh. Next to Snowed Inn, the Armstrong house represented her only sanctuary in the whole state.

  Sure enough, she'd barely stepped out of the SUV when the chalet's front door opened. Phyllis Armstrong, clad in gray sweats, with her bottle-black hair wrapped in pink foam rollers, appeared on the stoop. "Hurry." She waved a hand above her lumpy hair. "Richie's in the den with the television on, monitoring the situation."